I was 8 years old when I wandered into the neighborhood True Value Hardware store and bought my first comic: the penultimate issue of the NOW Comics series The Terminator. Issue #16 of The Terminator was interesting in that the story contained exactly zero actual terminators. I would go on to be enthralled by the ads of this Ralph Snart character but it was a rare day when I would encounter another NOW comic.

At the same time I picked up an issue of Iron Man, the only detail of it I remember being Tony Stark ending up naked in a forest and having to hitch a ride from a hot blonde in a convertible. This would lead me to a love affair with Iron Man and subsequently Marvel which would last through appx. 1993. During this time I stayed on the weird side of things, collecting the cosmic titles as well as the infamous new crop of 90s books (Darkhawk, Sleepwalker, 2099, etc).

Around this time I was pulled away from Marvel by two comics from a new publisher, Valiant: Bloodshot #1 with its chromium cover and introductory splash page of a guy's head getting blown away, and Solar: Man of the Atom #20 (I think?) which had the most horrific cover I had ever seen (it was love at first sight). Thus began a 2 year love affair with Valiant that lasted until just before The Chaos Effect but unfortunetaly encompassed the Deathmate crossover.

As Valiant was winding down and my superhero fix was waning I was already on to what would become my favorite book of. all. time:

Grendel was a title that shot out at me one day at my LCS. It was the original graphic novel of War Child and the cover was just too cool to pass up. I wasn't older than 13 at the time but the LCS owner didn't seem to mind as I soon became lost in the post-apocalyptic world of Orion Assante and Grendel Prime. I began to track down all of the Comico back issues and everything else Grendel related and I never really let up. Matt Wagner became my god and I worship at the alter to this day.

Years pass of me basically only buying the occasional Grendel release, along with Stray Bullets from my other god and former Valiant man David Lapham and eventually at some point in the middle of high school I drop comics altogether.

Cut to six years (or so) later and I am now living on the other side of the country in Los Angeles and have no friends and a lot of free time so am at the bookstore constantly. I am lead back into comics by two titles (from Marvel of all places): Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man.

I find out that there are actually talented people now working on mainstream comics, and that the gimmick-centric polybag craze of my 90s has been dropped in favor of comics that.are.actually.good. So I jump headfirst back into comics with one difference: I become a strict (strict) trades-only buyer. None of my non-Grendel singles made it out to L.A. and I have no desire to spend money on things I end up hiding away in a bag in a box in the back of my closet.

I find trades to be a wonderous thing: hardcovers, tpb's, omnibus's, absolutes, I eat them all up and begin following many more titles than ever before while being turned on to new talent.

Okay, so enough history, what you really want to know is where I stand now? Well after buying about 50 trades in keeping up with Infinite Crisis (93% of the 50 which I greatly enjoy) I am now following many DC titles, as well as the occasional Vertigo book beyond my religious devotion to Wagner's Sandman Mystery Theatre. Over at Marvel it is Runaways, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Punisher Max. I'm looking forward to the horror books from Wildstorm and I guess I follow Walking Dead, although I'm not in love with it.

2007 is the year of GRENDEL

p.s. I had to delete my original account because Orion_Assante cut off into "Orion_Ass" on everyones friends list